


Resound

by SisterWolf



Series: Spider-Wizard [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Young Wizards - Diane Duane
Genre: Canon Divergence - Avengers (2012), Gen, If you squint at it, The Wizards' Oath (Young Wizards), Young Peter Parker, on ordeal, wizard!Peter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-02-12
Packaged: 2021-03-13 17:27:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29282229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SisterWolf/pseuds/SisterWolf
Summary: The month before the Battle of New York, Peter Parker finds a book on the sale shelf at his local library. He decides that he absolutely does want to be a wizard and the consequences of his choice will change everything.Maybe.
Series: Spider-Wizard [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2150391
Comments: 8
Kudos: 19





	1. So You Want to Be

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Stars, Rain, Sun, Moon](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1506209) by [adiva_calandia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/adiva_calandia/pseuds/adiva_calandia). 



_Where shall the word be found, where will the word_   
_Resound? Not here, there is not enough silence_   
_Not on the sea or on the islands, not_   
_On the mainland, in the desert or the rain land,_   
_For those who walk in darkness_   
_Both in the day time and in the night time_   
_The right time and the right place are not here_   
_No place of grace for those who avoid the face_   
_No time to rejoice for those who walk among noise and deny_   
_the voice_

-T.S Eliot, Ash Wednesday

Earth-199999

April 14, 2012 

It is a glorious spring afternoon in Queens and the smell of green growing things is carried by a warm breeze through their neighborhood, and Peter Parker is bored out of his mind in the North Forest Park branch of the Queens Public Library. It’s not that he dislikes the library - he loves the library - but he has books at home that he’s just checked out and what he is basically stuck doing right now is waiting for Aunt May to figure out her taxes.

The night before they are due. Peter gets in trouble for putting off schoolwork until the last minute, or at least he had before his Uncle had died last year. It wasn’t really May’s way to put things off like this, but Peter doesn’t think she’s done the taxes herself before, leaving that specifically to Ben. So now he wanders around the library, stopping to look at the posters, the hamster spinning in its wheel. He looks at a display case of complicated origami designs with some fascination and makes an idle mental note that he might want to check out a book on the topic, once the run on the books the display is doubtlessly causing ends.

He finds himself by the for-sale cart, although usually, the old books, with their plain covers and dusty smell don’t interest him that much. Expecting nothing different today, he picks up the nearest one at hand and begins to leaf through it.

The first section he lands on is neatly labeled “Familiars and Helpmeets, Advice to the Initiate,” he blinks a few times, wondering if he’s picked up a copy of an old D&D book that’s been rebound, but the title page simply says, “So You Want to Be A Wizard.”

Peter, who is pretty sure the only thing he’s ever wanted to be more than a wizard in his life is Iron Man, puts his fifty cents in the box on the end of the shelf and finds a place to settle in with his new book. He turns one of the wooden chairs around to sprawl on and opens the book to the first page, carefully taking in the specific details of what it’s talking about. It sounds too serious, too important to be a roleplaying game, and he eventually fishes some scraps of paper and a golf pencil from a basket near a catalog computer so that he can make notes. He begins to write in the margins, although he looks around guiltily for a few moments before he remembers that this book is his and he can write in it if he wants.

By seven-thirty, with the help of the library’s hassled tax preparation volunteer, May figures out her taxes. She takes them home, although they stop for late dinner at the Italian restaurant next door. Peter doesn’t mention the book, because he doesn’t want May to tell him that it’s not real. He’s afraid that if she does, what the book seems to be offering, the power and the calling to preserve life with magic will fade away, as suddenly false as Santa Claus.

He does not go to sleep easily. After May is asleep, he takes out his flashlight and returns to reading the book. While he desperately wants to believe in the magic it promises, he has a lot of questions, the first of which is, why would the universe want an eleven year old - well, ten, really - wizard? He decides that Harry Potter got his Hogwarts letter at eleven, though, and while that goes pretty disastrously for Harry’s life, this doesn’t quite seem to be the same sort of thing. This magic comes with the responsibility of everyday things, like not telling lies, and conserving electricity, and remembering to recycle your homework papers. He thinks he can handle this.

According to the book, he has many personality traits of a potential wizard already. He loves words, and books, and even more than that he loves finding out how things work. His desk is often a mess of taken-apart gadgets, which he finds even more interesting than his best friend Ned’s lego sets. Does he want to see how the universe really works? Yes, he thinks, he really does. Is he prepared to face the somewhat ominously hinted at ordeal or test that will come for him if he takes the oath this book offered?

He remembers staring down the drone at the Stark Expo, the summer before the last one, that odd sense of fearlessness, of fierceness and rightness that filled him when he raised the fake repulsor on his hand at the blank faceplate firing real rockets. He sometimes wonders what he would have done if the real Iron Man hadn’t saved him, and he thinks the answer is probably that he would have died.

No, he thinks, he’s not afraid of the Ordeal. He stuffs the book under his pillow, and pulls the covers up, deciding that tomorrow he’ll go to the park where they scattered Ben’s ashes to take the oath.

He doesn’t hear the soft, cold laughter that follows his decision, but the spider living in the corner behind the bead does and shudders in her web.


	2. Into the Fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter feels something settle down around him as he says the words. At first it seems like he is being carefully cocooned, safe and warm, like wrapping himself in Ben’s old jacket. The sensation does not quite last, however, as the warm cocoon flexes outwards, taking all his senses with it, encompassing the whole neighborhood, the whole city, the world. He can hear the grass growing all around him, the hum of the wind in the trees, the barking grumble of nearby cars, even faintly the singing of the stars themselves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Oath is entirely the work of Diane Duane.

_Come on, come on_

_Put your hands into the fire_

_Explain, explain_

_As I turn, I meet the power_

_This time, this time_

_Turning white and senses dying_

_Pull up, pull up_

_From one extreme to another_

_-Thirteen Senses, Into the Fire_

  
  


Peter inhales his breakfast, getting May’s permission to go to the park and then maybe go over to Ned’s. At her insistence, he takes his old flip phone, even though he hates it. 

He can barely put down the book to walk, so intent is he on memorizing the words of the Wizard's Oath, knowing somehow that he will be bound by them for the rest of his life. A part of him wants to sing them, but the rest becomes quiet as he approaches the park. He has not been here since they scattered his uncle’s ashes last year, and he is both heartsore and glad, thinking of Ben all around him, a silent witness to what he is about to do. 

Peter settles at the base of a linden tree, again opening the book to the words and reading them silently, again and again until he knows the words by heart. When he is ready he closes the book. There beneath the linden, Peter takes the Wizard’s Oath, hoping against all hope that everything in the book he still holds in his trembling hands is true. 

“In Life's name and for Life's sake, I say that I will use the Art for nothing but the service of that Life. I will guard growth and ease pain. I will fight to preserve what grows and lives well in its own way; and I will change no object or creature unless its growth and life, or that of the system of which it is part, are threatened. To these ends, in the practice of my Art, I will put aside fear for courage, and death for life, when it is right to do so -- till Universe's end.”

Peter feels something settle down around him as he says the words. At first, it seems like he is being carefully cocooned, safe and warm, like wrapping himself in Ben’s old jacket. The sensation does not quite last, however, as the warm cocoon flexes outwards, taking all his senses with it, encompassing the whole neighborhood, the whole city, the world. He can hear the grass growing all around him, the hum of the wind in the trees, the barking grumble of nearby cars, even faintly the singing of the stars themselves.

It’s very overwhelming and Peter closes his eyes and covers his ears at the sudden sensory intrusion as says the last words. He’s really glad no one is here to see when he passes out.

When he opens his eyes at last he is beneath a vast, starlit sky, full of unfamiliar constellations. Craning his head, he sees that he is lying on bare earth, around him an unfamiliar pattern of growing white lines. His head is being cradled in someone’s lap, and the someone leans forward.

“Careful there,” says a familiar/not familiar voice. Peter tries to make out the features but the light is behind the figure. “Where am I?” Peter asks, still not ready to move, but very concerned about the fact that he is no longer in the park. “Part of your mind,” the voice says carefully. “Ordinary mortals don’t usually come here, but you took the Oath,” the voice says, shoulders shrugging in silhouette. 

“Then why is there someone else here besides me?” is Peter’s response. “Well,” the voice continues. “There is, and there isn’t. I suppose the joke’s on both of us here - I didn’t expect that we’d be talking quite so soon. But now….” the familiar voice hesitates. “Terrible things are coming, Peter. Terrible choices that you’ll have to make, choices that aren’t fair.” The voice sighs. “I wanted you to know you won’t be alone for them. Even if it’s a long time before you see me again.”

“I’m not seeing you now.”

“Someday, when you look in the mirror, you will.”

Peter wakes again, a few minutes later, beneath the linden tree, with only a vague memory of the previous conversation. A wolf spider watches him and he slowly flips to the correct page in the book to find the words. “ _Dai stiho_ ,” he offers to the spider, carefully, in the speech. He can just make out its response. “ _Well met, Elder Brother_.”

He picks himself up and puts the book in his backpack, and goes over to Ned’s as promised. They spend the remainder of the day immersed in the story they have made together, and Peter goes home that night to begin studying the wizard’s manual in earnest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I'll add tags and characters and relationships to the story as they appear. We're going somewhere. This story won't stop humming in my head, but it definitely keeps demanding that I do research, both in the YW books and the various MCU films and Marvel comics. Also writing in the present tense with any sort of consistency feels challenging, but I think it adds a sense of urgency to the story.

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to suggest some tags because I have no idea what I am doing.


End file.
